Marcia - 12:47 pm on Jun 27, 2007 (gmt 0)

The one single "community" feature I personally find valuable on a consistent basis are the consumer product reviews on a certain large discount chain store's website. They do seem above board and unbiased on the whole, because there are valid points made about the negative features of some products, which then become an important criteria for selection among available products.

That doesn't mean I still won't continue to do price and shipping cost comparisons at different sites, but from the viewpoint of someone who's had affiliate links on sites linking to that merchant, I can honestly say that it doesn't hurt one bit for more_than_decent conversion percentages, even when the reviews are less than perfect.